


Sea and Storm

by illwynd



Category: Thor - All Media Types
Genre: Blood and Violence, Captivity, Character Death, Horror, M/M, Merpeople, Shipwrecks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-31
Updated: 2017-10-31
Packaged: 2019-01-27 04:32:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,934
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12573780
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/illwynd/pseuds/illwynd
Summary: A storm. A shipwreck in the middle of the ocean. Sailors bobbing on the water, struggling to survive against the hostile creatures of the deep. But there is always more to the story than that.





	Sea and Storm

**Author's Note:**

> Another spookyfic for your delectation, dear readers! Happy Halloween!
> 
> Also, many thanks to Schaudwen for the prompt that spawned this, and to both her and Alex for beta-reading. You guys are awesome.

So lovely, so lovely.

The ship of the surface-dwellers has crashed upon the rocks in the tossing of the storm. Wood breaks, splinters float upon the water. Gurgling cries reach our ears. Their panic is only beginning.

We stream upward to reach them, through the dark waters, through the waters that we do not feel as cold, but cold it is. We find them shivering. Their skins are white as fish, near blue in spots like dull scales. Their hair is tangled, washing into their faces with each wave, like seaweed.

They cling, desperate, to the floating barrels that were their cargo. To the broken timbers of their ship. A few have been lucky enough to hurl themselves out of the water, draping their bodies over whatever small island of debris they can gather.

But we, we invite their despair.

The sharks have seen our circling, and they come to the feast as well. We let them in, only one or two, and watch them swim forward with the determination of such a simple creature, simple and sharp-toothed and single-minded.

We shriek with laughter as blood blooms red, as white limbs dangling in the water are frantically pulled back.

We drive the sharks away after a while, and then we swim up to the surface to play with the surface-dwellers some more.

We sing to them and tell them what we have just done for them, saving them from a cruel fate. We cannot possibly leave them to the mercy of the seas. Of all the things that would devour them, tear their fragile limbs from their bodies. We cannot possibly leave them to the cold, the thirst, the heat, the exhaustion, the madness.

The first man takes our bait, wide-eyed, sliding himself off his raft and into our waiting arms.

His skin is shriveled gooseflesh, and his body is so frail. Our hands between his legs, amazed at what he leaves so bare. Our arms around his torso, dragging him down into the water. He thrashes and struggles so sweetly.

We bare sharp teeth and taste, single-minded.

*

While the skies were still blue, Thor walked upon the deck, eyes flicking upward to where the broad sails bellied out in the gusts of wind.

His captors had let him wander free because—where could he go? What could he do? And anyway this was his purpose.

He had believed that for years.

Before that, he had been a young boy living in the rough wooden hut of his mother’s farm when a traveler passing through had first noticed it, his resemblance to the god. How he laughed and played with delight when the thunder grumbled in the wide grey sky; it had seemed to answer to him, even, if one wished to believe it. He remembers the man chuckling and ruffling his hair as he darted by. The man telling his mother he ought to have been named Thor.

Thor now no longer remembers what his mother first named him.

He remembers how their visitor had been nearly forgotten some months later when the men returned, this time a whole group of them, mounted on dark horses, with weapons heavy and potent at their sides. All towering over Thor’s young head.

They had offered his mother sacks of gold coins to take him away from there. To raise him to veneration, they said, as the living embodiment of the god. To raise him for the blessings he would bestow, the good fortune he would grant.

When she refused, they had taken him anyway, grabbed him by the arm as he screamed.

Thor heard his mother screaming as well, and he heard loud noises of many men moving, but he does not know what happened to her after that, for one of the men had lifted him up, and his face was pressed against damp leather that smelled of salt and something musty, old.

It began to rain, rain driven by a biting wind, and the men who had stolen him took this as proof of the rightness of their action. Proof of what he was and what he could be. That first night the thunder crashed, and Thor wailed, and he felt the pressure of it in his temples.

He has spent the years since then living as their captive. Too small and frightened to resist, at first. And then not truly _believing_ what they told him, but the feeling of obligation crept around him. Their demands, their insistence. His guilt. The memories of a warm hearth and sitting watching a woman’s fingers at the spindle—those faded as the years passed. After some time, all he knew was life upon the ship, being told that his presence was what made their journeys possible. That he had no choice but to do as he was told, lest they all be lost to the treacherous seas.

They kept him safe, and they did not make him work much, and they ensured that always he did have the best of all the little comforts. There was still one man among the crew, his face now lined and one eye missing, who still ruffled Thor’s hair on occasion. And they chained Thor only when they docked in port.

In truth, even if he had escaped, he would not have known where to go. He barely remembered land. He did not know where his first home had been. He knew no other purpose than this one.

But Thor paced upon the deck, something stirring inside him. The sea, dark and glittering, called to him. Not in its calm but in its power. This ship had been his cage, and he wanted now to be free of it.

They had told him all these years that he was the commander of storms.

And now, for the first time, he wished for one.

*

We have picked off the men from their rafts one by one, and our stomachs now are distended and full from the size of the feast we have consumed. The waters are red and fractionally saltier. We float, digesting so much flesh, looking around at each other in satisfaction, and only one pale, glistening face is missing.

We have not seen Loki in some time. He swam off at the first sound of wood cracking, as the first garbled screams and cries came drifting down through the water to our ears. He swam off, mostly likely circling to find a place from which he could watch alone.

This is not unlike him.

Lonely Loki, Loki who is strange, Loki who has never quite belonged among us.

He lingers at the edge of the circle around the wreck, bobbing with his head above the waves and his long green-black tail swaying rhythmically beneath the water, keeping him upright. His black hair is slicked down his neck, over his ears. He turns his head this way and that.

He had heard a cry, and there was something about it. Something that he could not name. Something that matched to the twinge he had felt before the storm had struck, pulling him to this stretch of water—the same twinge that had called them all, but to him it had been more than a hunger. More than the sensation of knowing a nearby spawning and rushing to fill one’s belly. Something different. Something new and unforeseen.

His gills flap open in the air.

After a while he hears it again, and this time he pinpoints a direction, and he ducks back under the water and swims until he finds it.

Finds _him_.

He is worse off than the rest of the men had been an hour ago, fighting for their lives, cursing and weeping and praying. He is barely clinging to life. Barely clinging to consciousness. Barely clinging to a floating hunk of wood as it is tossed on the choppy waves. The cry Loki heard must have been his last dazed attempt at summoning aid, for his eyes are closed now and his face is almost peaceful, aside from the smear of blood across it from a deep gash upon his brow.

He is perfect, and the sight of him spears Loki through like a harpoon and draws him closer. Binds him irrevocably.

Loki has never seen such loveliness.

He spends several spellbound minutes swimming all around the floating man, reaching out to touch him. Grasping his hand to feel the delicate strength in it. Running fingers down his back, so broad, the shape so perfect. The long legs below. The vulnerability of a body like this in the sea—the man could not hope to survive. He is both strong and weak. He is helpless and beautiful. Loki is fascinated. Enthralled.

Loki confronts the laces on his boots and at length unties them, pulls off the sturdy wet leather and lets it drift away. Reveals white feet, curling toes the first motion he has spotted.

The man is still alive.

When Loki pulls him into the water, he gets yet another pleasant shock, for the hair that spreads out like a waving fan, long and beautiful, is the bright color of the light that glimmers on the surface just after sunrise.

In all the wrecks Loki has witnessed, he has never found such a treasure.

In all the chests of gold that have fallen into the deeps, never has he found something like this.

Loki does not call to his sisters and brothers. He will not share this one. He will not allow his treasure to be destroyed by the appetites of others.

This one shall be only his.

When he wraps his arms around the man and pulls him deeper, blue eyes flash open, staring back at him for one moment before he begins, weakly, to struggle.

It feels so sweet, his body bucking and thrashing. Those same bare, white toes kicking against the scales of Loki’s long tail. Those same delicate, strong hands shoving against his chest. Loki pulls the man tight against him, savoring. Not wanting this part to end, as it always must.

As it always must.

The man is still struggling when Loki puts his mouth to his, but he does not pretend to breathe into him. It is just a kiss; Loki has never tasted a kiss before, and he wants it while there is still life in this treasure he has found.

He kisses the man while he continues to twitch and struggle, eyes wide and panicked. Loki kisses him while he drowns, and it is all perfect.

Loki will cherish this forever. Loki will not let anyone else have him. It is almost a protective feeling in his cold chest. This treasure is his.

A last few silvery bubbles rise from the man’s nose, and they ascend to the surface, bursting there, carrying the man’s last breath to the open air.

Long moments pass, and the sky above seems to darken.

Long moments before the drowned man’s eyes drift open again, blue and calm as the seas could only ever pretend to be.

His body is soft and golden and perfect as Loki drags him deeper, swimming with both arms around him, and far above the waves the clouds gather like a blackening bruise. They spread out across the wide sea, encroaching onto the land. Spreading to every shore, bringing gales, bringing torrents.

The storm engulfs the world. But Loki does not know or care as he drags his treasure down into the darkest waters—so deep, so deep—to where no sunlight could reach, if the sun still shone.


End file.
